The Visiting Writers Program at Cayuga Community College will host poet and published author Jerry Mirskin at 11 a.m. Monday, November 12 in the lower level of the Norman F. Bourke Memorial Library, Auburn Campus, 197 Franklin St. The event is free and open to the public.

A Bronx native, Mirskin has lived in California and Maine, and has a diverse range of job titles on his resume, including herdsman on a dairy farm, carpenter, and New York State Poet-in-the-Schools. His current title is that of an associate professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College, where he specializes in teaching poetry, composition theory, academic writing, and literacy and service learning. He also teaches courses at Cornell University.

“Jerry Mirskin’s poetry imagines a world where the mundane collides with the miraculous— where Pez candy is sacred and a moonlit path can lead to love,” said Professor Mark Montgomery, who is organizing the program.

While he is on campus, Mirskin will also lead a seminar for students, faculty, and staff members at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 14 on the Auburn Campus.

His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and he has presented his work at colleges, libraries, art centers, and television. His first collection, Picture a Gate Hanging Open and Let that Gate Be the Sun, was published in 2002, by Mammoth Books after being chosen for first prize in the Mammoth Books Prize for Poetry. A second collection, entitled In Flagrante Delicto, was released in October 2008.

Mirskin is expected to discuss his life as a writer as well as to read some of his poems.

He holds a Ph.D. in English/composition theory from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a master’s in English/creative writing from SUNY Binghamton, and a bachelor’s in psychology from SUNY Fredonia.